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You might even come away from all of this thinking that the only sure path for the game maker is to ditch their hardware division, start publishing games on competitors’ platforms, and rush headlong into mobile.

I tend to take a very different outlook. I worry that a move to mobile especially would undercut the very thing that makes Nintendo’s products so valuable: Quality.

In an industry consistently plagued with bugs and half-baked releases, Nintendo is one of the few game developers that releases almost-flawless titles each and every time.

Last year, only one major bug stands out, out of all of Nintendo’s releases—a save-corrupting issue with Pokemon X/Y which Nintendo had patched up less than two weeks after it was reported.

Glancing over all of Nintendo’s 2013 titles, that same quality and precision runs throughout.

This isn’t to say that each and every game Nintendo releases is excellent. They have their misses just like everyone else.

But there’s a level of quality control in Nintendo’s games that is noticeably absent in the wider industry—an industry inundated with day-one patches (and DLC) and bugs, game-breaking or otherwise.

Look no further than Battlefield 4 to see how calamitous a rushed release can be. But even the surprisingly great Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag had its share of bugs, not to mention the Uplay connection issues that many gamers experienced.

We won’t even delve into the disaster that was Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Nintendo is also at the forefront of innovation in the industry, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse—innovation, after all, is the act of risk-taking and sometimes risks don’t pay off.

The Wii was a huge success thanks to the console’s innovative motion controls which, at least at first, opened the gates to a whole new kind of gamer. Still, I’d argue that motion control more often detract from games, and that motion controls in general have been a distraction.

Likewise, Nintendo’s dual-screen gameplay, both with handhelds and the Wii U, can make for some really interesting gaming experiences. But even so, it may have been a mistake with the Wii U. A risk that didn’t translate into consumer demand.

Nonetheless, even if the Wii U never finds its feet, at least Nintendo was attempting to do something different than the competition, not content to merely offer yet another console with a few power upgrades.

The innovation carries over to software.

Nintendo is often accused of re-hashing the same IPs over and over again, and there’s no doubt that Mario fatigue is a problem.

But even with Mario, we see huge changes from one game to the next. A Mario RPG is nothing like a 2D platformer game like New Super Mario U, which in turn is nothing like a 3D adventure like Super Mario 3D World.

Contrast this with the annual release of Call of Duty, a game that—while wildy popular—never departs from the formula.

Zelda recycles the same story over and over again, endlessly, and each game shares many things in common with the rest, and yet somehow most entries in the franchise feel fresh and original.

Looking at the wider Nintendo releases in 2013 is eye-opening.

The charming Pikmin 3 is really like no other game on the market. As a real-time strategy title, it’s almost hard to explain to people who haven’t actually played it. The Wonderful 101 is a dazzling, bizarre action-platformer—again, like nothing else on the market. (Perhaps even a little too outside the proverbial box.)

And then we have 3DS titles like Fire Emblemand Animal Crossing: New Leaf. And Pokemon and Zelda.

Nintendo is releasing some of the most interesting, quirky games on the market. Games that aren’t designed to necessarily reach the widest audience possible; games that play to numerous niches.

They may not all sell as well as our annual first-person shooters, but at least they’re not simply aimed at the lowest common denominator.

I don’t mean to heap praise on Nintendo for Nintendo’s sake. What Nintendo does right I’d simply like to see more of across the industry.

But Nintendo is obviously doing many other things poorly. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation to begin with. Nintendo’s marketing, for instance, has been less than stellar.

The entire release of the Wii U was a disaster, right down to the name of the console itself. Nor has Nintendo done enough to market its games. No game as good as Super Mario 3D World, with such high brand recognition and glowing critical praise, should sell this poorly.

Nintendo could also improve its relationship with gamers.

The focus on casual gamers that started in earnest with the Wii has created a rift between the company and many in the “core” community, with Nintendo almost going out of its way to distance itself from the gaming community. Nintendo has also done too little to make third party partners a part of their business, and it shows.

Meanwhile, Nintendo’s actions against the Let’s Play video community smack of a peculiar disconnect between Nintendo and its most loyal fans.

The afore-mentioned Mario fatigue is also a problem. While Nintendo has been good about bringing new and quirky games to their systems lately, the huge focus on Mario is a mistake.

Nintendo has so many more exclusive IPs at its disposal. Focusing on Luigi—2013 was the “Year of Luigi” after all—isn’t really a solution to this at all. Where is Metroid? Where is Star Fox? Or how about a new, iconic first party franchise?

Still, these problems aside, Nintendo’s place in the market is an important one.

As a company invested in quality releases, I can think of few developers that compare. Nor can I think of many companies out there that are comparable in terms of size and innovation. I’m not sure either of these features translate well into a company only producing software, and I certainly worry that a move into mobile would hurt Nintendo’s reputation for quality.

There are other reasons, of course. Like the importance of kid-friendly games that aren’t just on touch-screens.

“When you look at the situation around Nintendo that way, do you characterize Nintendo as our competition? I think in the bigger scale of things happening in the industry or tech or people’s lives, how they play games on what device, and how they start to learn to play games, I think Nintendo and us are pretty much in the same group, and we need Nintendo to be very successful to help induct as many consumers who like to play games with controllers, right?”

Ultimately, I’m not sure how Nintendo succeeds in this market. But it’s important that they do, if only to keep the competition honest and hold the industry to a higher bar.

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I have literally looked through Nintendo’s entire 3DS game catalog. Only 10 of them I deemed were worth buying (including Bravely Default), and I have 6 of them now. I also plan on getting the DS’s Phoenix Wright series. If everything proceeds as planned and Nintendo gets their shit together, I’ll probably own more than just 10 3DS games. I’m hoping for a Metroid game in particular; either in the style of Prime, or a port of it.

I would disagree on the Mario 3D World selling poorly part. In 2 months 3D World has managed to crack 2 million sold. Nintendo games are usually evergreen titles that are usually meant to sell for several years rather than selling milions right out of the gate then ending up on used game shelves just as fast. They pretty much stopped claiming Youtube videos as well

Raw numbers aren’t a very good benchmark. Attach rate showcases the performance much much better.

Super Mario Galaxy sold 10 million copies lifetime on a 100 million strong userbase, or an attach rate of 10%

Mario 3D World has sold 2 million copies into a 4 million userbase of an attach rate of 50%.

As more Wii U’s are sold, this game will keep selling. If I was Nintendo I would be pretty confident this would surpass the first Galaxy game by the end of the console’s life. Say the Wii U sells 30 million systems lifetime, and with a 50% attach rate if it holds will easily outsell Galaxy

There isn’t much you can do now in this stagnating industry. Everything is cookie cutter boredom where games are decided off of risk charts to see if they will succeed because risk is a huge factor in business nowadays. Nintendo innovated in every console and for that they succeeded in the games industry and to make the games industry what it is today. Now Nintendo are in the shadows. Microsoft and Sony were far too interested in figuring out 12 year old boys like playing with guns so they thought about making money not about making good games. When did ever a Nintendo game have a gun in it? Goldeneye back in 2000, goes to show their not the ones aiming for easy and safe cash grab like everyone else in this industry does. It saddens me that no one cares about Nintendo anymore I feel sorry for this generation of gamers that is going to grow up on basic, easy to play games that were designed with the intention of huge hit very safe investment get rich quick.

Does this industry need Nintendo to survive??? I don’t think so games industry has moved onto stagnation and drought. Nintendo you took the risks and you made interesting video games something no one would be able to do. For that, thankyou.

GoldenEye revolutionised FPS gaming. From it stemmed Perfect Dark, which was fantastic, and then Sony got the rights to the next James Bond game, which didn’t do well. In its time GoldenEye was the pinnacle of what FPS was and could be, and to this day is one of the best, in my humble opinion. If Nintendo maintained the rights for Tomorrow Never Dies and TWINE games and kept them developed by Rare, Nintendo could be a leader in FPS entertainment at this moment.

In regards to stopping the focus on Mario and Zelda (with Pokemon too), I came up with this for their other IPs:

Metroid fans (myself included) are still angry after Other M. Something like that doesn’t just go away, especially when you use the design from it in the newest Smash Bros. game, accidentally reminding people of it. The series should be given back to Retro so that they can make Prime 4 for the Wii U (or the next console) or a classically-styled title on the 3DS. They’ve had side-scroller experience with Donkey Kong, as well as their Prime Engine, which they also used for Donkey Kong Country Returns. They are definitely qualified to make a new Metroid title.

Star Fox is easy: Make an HD version with more branching paths and tons of secrets, maybe multiple Arwings and Landmasters to upgrade and paint (maybe allow for these custom designs to be shared online), and a decent online multiplayer mode. Taking everything that people like about Star Fox 64 and expanding upon it with new technology.

New F-Zero game: HD 32-player races going at 700+ miles-per-hour. There is nothing that could go wrong there.

Custom Robo is a franchise I really wish they’d resurrect; it’s existed for a while and the only releases its had here in the west were on the GameCube and DS. Mix-and-match toy robots blasting the hell out of each other with laser cannons, missiles, and such? That would be a multiplayer paradise.

From the very top. I like motion controls. I like touch screens and even mics in my controller. You are right in saying that sometimes, they don’t work. Donkey Kong country serves as a huge reminder of what not to do, control wise. The so called casual gamer is not the only person not buying the Wii U. I would content that you’re talking about normal everyday people, including the following groups. Group 1: Hardcore Nintendo fans. They buy pretty much every console launch day. They often love Zelda and Metroid and scavenge the internet. Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime, and Starfox Assualt are their games. Group 2: Unsatisfied Nintendo fans, and they are much more savvy with their money. 2D Mario, Wii Sports and Donkey Kong brought them back. Group 3: The masses. Games like Wii Sports finally brought them into gaming. Or is it back into gaming? Pong and Pacman were for the masses (the latter aimed at women). Their last legitimate gaming experience could very well have been the arcade, or the NES-SNES era, or even Atari. That means pong and Pacman! PC gamers could also be in this group as they see the Playstation and xbox for what they really are: dumb pc’s.

In the end the games brought everyone to the console. How many Nintendo fans look at the Wii U and think it’s not for them? 3D World’s mission is partly to ‘convert’ the 2D Mario fans into 3D Mario fans. I would add that to your article. There’s no Mario Kart. No Smash Brothers. 2D Mario looks like a rehash of NSMBWii in HD. Pikmin 3 lacks mass market appeal and does a poor job of being a first party game, which is supposed to sell the console. The required controller no matter how you spin it is not a Wiimote. Marketing won’t fix that. Hardcore players might like it, but if Microsoft and Sony take most of them all, what does Nintendo have? There’s a lot wrong with the Wii U, and did I mention the account system is from what I hear from the net, still botched? Nintendo said they’ll fix that but until then.. All these are legitimate complaints.

I hate where the industry as a whole is going. Mobile games that are filled with microtransactions and begging you to buy more of them, while lacking in depth and quality, and on the other hand, the big-budget end, we get ultraconservatism and guns guns guns or at the least, sequels sequels sequels.

The ballooning costs of video game development are in large part to blame for the latter, along with the weak economy. But what can be done about the former?

I’ve had more excitement from “middle budget” games like DuckTales Remastered and Gone Home than from the garbage on the low end and the unoriginality on the high end.

The Need for Nintendo is tremendous. Nintendo advertises family games and rarely has any blood and gore games within its franchise. We need Nintendo for the parents who want their kids to learn while doing something fun, rather than the industries that practically give out useless violence games like call of duty or modern warfare because lets be real, the people who buy and play these games the most are under-aged teens and elementary schoolers. I respect nintendo for what they are trying to do, but sadly that not what sells anymore. it definately does need to branch out its gaming but it should not steer away from mario because Mario will be and always represent nintendo and just that name alone will cause people to buy their games

Nintendo has distanced itself too far from other major console developers. They’re a video game company and they need to act like one if they want to stay that way. They don’t have to make violent games themselves or make they’re own COD game that comes out every year but they need to let someone else do it.

I mean if you had a choice of buying a blu-ray player that only played Disney and Family movies and one that played everything except for Disney movies….you’d probably by the second one. There’s an audience out there for the first player and I’d probably buy one just cause Disney makes some awesome movies and I’d like to watch them but I’d spend more time with the other player honestly.

Nintendo just has to have something for everyone, they should have made the original Wii more accessible to 3rd party developers….they should have gone HD….they should have had a better network for their gamers. I know that’s allot of “should haves” but while Sony and Microsoft were building a community of gamers and drawing major 3rd party support and gaining exclusive studios to develop their own legacies….Nintendo was teaching grandma how to bowl and watch Netflix. And now there’s a Wii U and guess what? Grandma and Joe Earl and all those new casual gamers Nintendo was so proud of gaining don’t care. They don’t care cause they can still bowl or play Cabela’s Big Game Hunter and they don’t understand why they should drop $300 on a new system.

Nintendo might fix this, but I really think it’s too late. I’ve been playing Assasin’s Creed games on my PS3 and now my PS4 for years…..I have a history there I have trophies I have a Uplay account that remembers what I did on AC 2 way back so why would I start cold on the Wii U? People who play COD on the 360 have a huge friends list and groups they play with and just a familiarity with the interface and controller….why change to a new system with a small struggling network and have to start all over again?

Even if every 3rd party game coming out on PS4 and X1 came out for the WiiU as well starting tomorrow they still have so many hurdles to cross just to convince people to buy it for their console instead. They distanced themselves too far for too long, they gave the finger to all the gamers who they thought they didn’t need in favor of a casual audience and those people just aren’t there to support them now. I think becoming a 3rd party developer is their best course, they make great games and they should really just focus on that.